I-Ching, 2012 and Terance McKenna's Time Wave Zero Theory

He did this by putting the 64 hexagrams of the I-Ching into a particular order and gave the lines they formed a mathematical value. He then translated the wave or curve of the graph this made, to represent time. Hence his I-Ching Time Wave Zero Theory.

McKenna said in, “The Invisible Landscape” [original (1975) edition, pp. 101-103] that believes the result of this exercise, “illuminates the nature of time and organism and provides an idea model which explains the interconnection of physical and psychological phenomena from the submolecular to the macrocosmic level.”

Don’t worry, just about everyone else who read that would have got lost too.

What is important to note is that McKenna, seen by many as a modern day Sharman, made his “discoveries” under the influence of hallucinogens. As a result he came to believe through his I-Ching Time Wave Zero model that the world as we know it would come to an end on December 21, 2012. The biggest influence behind McKenna's beliefs arose out of a time in the Arizona desert in March 1971 where he reported having a UFO experience. He believed the ‘messages’ he got from the mind altering substances that he ingested were from an alien civilization. He explained this by saying that mushroom spores (from the ‘magic’ mushrooms) would be the ideal place to store alien messages since they (the spores) could survive the cold of outer space.

McKenna had said in 1992 that at precisely 6am on December 21, 2012 humanity would confront the "transcendental object at the end of history." The way to face this moment was to consume "heroic" or "committed" doses of tryptamine-based hallucinogens, in particular DMT and psilocybin mushrooms. This would ensure that your psychedelic experience would give you access to an alien dimension of "self-transforming, hyperdimensional machine elves" who would meet you in hyperspace.

A number of years later in an interview with John Horgan of Scientific American in 1999 (who had asked McKenna if he was serious about his end of the world prediction), McKenna referred to himself as a “visionary fool,” who “propounds this thing which is a trillion to one shot” [ie. the time wave zero theory] and then “gets to live out the inevitably humorous implications of that.” His I-Ching Time Wave Zero Theory have certainly got him that!

In response to a question about whether he thought there will be some kind of apocalypse on December 21, 2012? McKenna said, “Well… No.” McKenna had defined the events of history through a mathematical model but of this model McKenna said, “It’s a weak case, because history is not a mathematically defined entity.” McKenna then added that his model was “just a kind of fantasizing within a certain kind of vocabulary.” He believed his model was a valid one even if it failed and added, “I’m trying to redeem history, make it make sense, show that it obeys laws.”

What then did McKenna think of the person whom many say was the central figure in all of human history? In other words, who did McKenna believe Jesus Christ was? To McKenna, Christ was a “manifestation of energy”. McKenna believed the universe was created by a demiurge. The demiurge (a fallen creature, a demon) was a divine being but not the ultimate creator. The demiurge then manifested itself in a human form which was Christ (an incarnation). This is quite the opposite of what the Bible says that Christ was and is God, the ultimate creator of time, space, matter and life.

He believes that at the moment of Christ’s incarnation (be that at the virgin conception or the resurrection – McKenna says, “take your pick”), our planet (earth) split into two planets so that both then existed in two parallel dimensions. One has the influence of Christ, the other does not. In the dimension without Christ, the absence Christ’s ideological line meant that Greek science (knowledge) was not suppressed as it was through Constantine and others in the dimension with Christ.

McKenna is speaking here of the suppression of shamanistic practices (ways of connecting with the spirit world – think, “demons”) and psychedelic practices (think hallucinogenic plants and other mind altering substances). McKenna then believed that on December 21, 2012, there would be a convergence of these two dimensions and the world would somehow realign itself. McKenna is quoted as saying, “I think around the Mayan millennium, around 2012, we will flow past the time island, and the two time-streams will be rejoined. And we will make peace with this civilization that is now a thousand years more advanced than us, with this totally different cultural history, and this completely different take on reality.”

McKenna, who wrote the book, “Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge”, had used hallucinogenic mind altering substances to get his so-called ‘knowledge’ about a two dimensional reality.

While I believe that his ‘knowledge’ was a demonic deception I also believe that he is right about there being two dimensions to life; but not the same two he is referring to.

I believe that there is both a physical and a spiritual dimension and the two are connected. There is physical life (human beings) and there is spiritual life (demons and angels). But I need to quickly add to this that I believe we (human physical life) are all spiritual beings ourselves. By spiritual I don’t mean our culture, values and beliefs which have come for some people to mean the ‘spiritual’ part of our lives.

Rather, I believe that we (humans) are spiritual beings in the sense that we are not our bodies and we are not our minds (just as you thought, you’re out of your mind). Instead, we are spiritual beings who have a body and a mind as well as a soul (the soul being life itself).

McKenna died on 3 April 2000 aged 53. He had entered the final reality. All that he had believed would be shown to be truth or a lie. The moment after his death, there would be no more hallucinations about life and eternity.